Valve has announced that it is allowing users to apply for the Steam for Linux beta.

Valve is specifically looking for experienced users that are familiar with Linux and are running Ubuntu 12.04 or above. This is likely because it's in the way early stages and needs a good debugging. Users that are newer to Linux are being asked to wait until the next beta release to apply.

There are only 1,000 spots available in the current registry, so those who fit the bill can sign up through their Steam accounts. Valve will follow up with users afterward.

Steam is a digital distribution, multiplayer and communications platform that distributes video games online from small developers to larger software companies.

i spent 15 years trying linux once a year. every time i gave up in disgust at its general crapness compared to windows till january of this year

this time i've made a complete transition to linux mint and i honestly feel that my computer and workflow is much more productive.

on my current machine all my hardware worked instantly. my printer just plugged in and worked - no downloading and running of a 200mb 'driver'. my ancient scanner that was a nightmare to get working windows 7 drivers for again just worked out of the box.

i still use microsoft office (along with endnote for bibliography management whilst writing papers) - it is 100% rock solid stable under wine.

(open office/libreoffice isnt as good IMO as ms office)

everything else works out of the box straight away - there is no faffing around sorting programs to use all the common files that arn't included by ms - pdf creation, rar files, matroska etc.

for me it really has just taken all the faff and hassle out computing.

i have an ulv core 2 duo machine so high end gaming was never a viable proposition - i can civ3 in wine - what more can anyone ask for!

i've got a virtualbox install of windows 7 that i can full screen and use if absolutely necessary - but i havent needed it in 6 months.

its not for everyone, but i suspect a lot of moderately advanced windows 7 users would be well served by giving a modern linux distro a go (would recommend linux mint with cinnamon right now).

the other group of people that really benefit from linux are the completely computer illiterate - it is quite easy to get a very simple working configuration on old hardware that requires no updating and doesnt get viruses/malware etc.

I was coming to the same conclusion recently. Its embarrassing how long it's took Linux to finally reach this point of being what i'd call acceptable, but i'd say Linux Mint has finally done it.

And i might have switched over to it on my old laptop... if it wasn't for Win 8. That OS is like Win 7 on steroids. It's faster at pretty much everything and uses considerably less RAM than Win 7, so where as before it would have been good to use Linux on old hardware, i can now just use Win 8 as its easily as snappy.

It's the same with the point you mention about drivers. Everything on all my Win 8 PC's has just worked straight away, where as on Win 7 it would sometimes not find drivers for things (it's 3 years old though to be fair). Mint would often have drivers for my stuff atleast as much as 7 ... but again Win 8 has surpassed both.

I also love the idea of having one OS that does everything. I think tablet/laptop hybrids (Asus Transformer Book for example) are the future of computing for most people. Ubuntu seems to been moving towards touch a little, or atleast mobility a lot more in the upcoming release. But i'd bet it isn't half as good as Win 8 in this area.

You should try KDE (Mint KDE/Kubuntu). With KDE you can switch at will between Plasma Desktop, Plasma Netbook and Plasma Active (tablet), this way you have an uncompromised UI for any form factor without having to change the whole environment. Plus it is lighter than Unity and probably Cinnamon.

KDE is underrepresented in that no mainstream distro uses it as it's flagship flavor but it's still a powerhouse.